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Unbeknownst to the author, if you have an internet connection, there are an infinite number of ways to communicate rather than use a closed-garden and predatory

Unbeknownst to the author, if you have an internet connection, there are an infinite number of ways to communicate rather than use a closed-garden and predatory medium like facebook.

ReverseCold 9y ago
Not only the author, most people don't realize this. Can someone start selling an open-source/end to end encrypted/feature rich/etc server called a "hub" or something that replaces all the closed gardens we have today? "Facebook" "Chat" "Reddit" etc but encrypted, local, and federated.
- StudentStuff 9y ago
  Mastodon Social and Signal seem to cover these use cases pretty well. Both already have sizable userbases too.
  - ReverseCold 9y ago
    Mastodon isn't encrypted, it's also decentralized in the same way email is which tends to lead toward centralization. Signal is centralized. Are they better than Facebook and Facebook Messenger? Yes, of course. (I use Mastodon though, the community is basically all Linux users/sysadmins/developers/etc which is great.)
    - dasyatidprime 9y ago
      Having multiple viewpoints into the Mastodon universe myself, what I've observed so far includes a lot of casual instance-switching and multiple-accounts. Some instances certainly have a very high proportion of Linux-oriented people; I see a lot of that from my primary account on mastodon.technology, for instance. Other instances are completely different. I see some major forces for counterpressure to centralization-gravity on Mastodon: (1) Mastodon starts with a homogeneous software base (ironically enough) giving “standard” back and front ends—which is then AGPL, meaning that instance owners can and do produce forks, but the forks cannot be held as Secret SaaS for lock-in since anyone who can access the instance can copy the source code from them. (It's probably possible to produce proprietary products that interop through ActivityPub, but this is harder—and importantly, you'll be the odd node out.) (2) The idea of a “local culture” is prevalent and visible, with differences in content policy, theming, and contents of local/federated timelines. The forks from (1) can amplify this by acting like per-instance customizations with “partial stickiness”. Being on casual-contact terms with your instance administrator is also not uncommon and sometimes encouraged, whereas email is much more impersonal. (3) The pervasive visibility of (2), mostly from instances doing their own CSS/text tweaks, provides a bridge to the “me but in a different social context” cues that are often missing in centralized social networks, which a number of people are starting to pay more attention to the need for. This while the interfaces remain basically isomorphic enough that there isn't a major UI/model-learning cost to jumping between instances. (4) Conversely to (3), for users that want efficient access, third-party clients that support multiple accounts at once are very common. But a Web browser also counts as an intermediate form of multi-account client—so long as your accounts are on different instances, which is thus encouraged for convenience!
- simple10 9y ago
  https://protonet.com/ https://protonet.com/ and https://holochain.org/ https://holochain.org/ are relevant and noteworthy projects. Prototnet is popular in Germany for SMB replacement of Google Apps. Holochain is an evolving blockchain / decentralized project that sold $500k USD worth of mini desktop servers on IndieGoGo last year to seed the infrastructure.

Unbeknownst to the author, if you have an internet connection, there are an infinite number of ways to communicate rather than use a closed-garden and predatory medium like facebook.

ReverseCold 9y ago

Not only the author, most people don't realize this. Can someone start selling an open-source/end to end encrypted/feature rich/etc server called a "hub" or something that replaces all the closed gardens we have today? "Facebook" "Chat" "Reddit" etc but encrypted, local, and federated.

StudentStuff 9y ago
Mastodon Social and Signal seem to cover these use cases pretty well. Both already have sizable userbases too.
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  Mastodon isn't encrypted, it's also decentralized in the same way email is which tends to lead toward centralization. Signal is centralized. Are they better than Facebook and Facebook Messenger? Yes, of course. (I use Mastodon though, the community is basically all Linux users/sysadmins/developers/etc which is great.)
  - dasyatidprime 9y ago
    Having multiple viewpoints into the Mastodon universe myself, what I've observed so far includes a lot of casual instance-switching and multiple-accounts. Some instances certainly have a very high proportion of Linux-oriented people; I see a lot of that from my primary account on mastodon.technology, for instance. Other instances are completely different. I see some major forces for counterpressure to centralization-gravity on Mastodon: (1) Mastodon starts with a homogeneous software base (ironically enough) giving “standard” back and front ends—which is then AGPL, meaning that instance owners can and do produce forks, but the forks cannot be held as Secret SaaS for lock-in since anyone who can access the instance can copy the source code from them. (It's probably possible to produce proprietary products that interop through ActivityPub, but this is harder—and importantly, you'll be the odd node out.) (2) The idea of a “local culture” is prevalent and visible, with differences in content policy, theming, and contents of local/federated timelines. The forks from (1) can amplify this by acting like per-instance customizations with “partial stickiness”. Being on casual-contact terms with your instance administrator is also not uncommon and sometimes encouraged, whereas email is much more impersonal. (3) The pervasive visibility of (2), mostly from instances doing their own CSS/text tweaks, provides a bridge to the “me but in a different social context” cues that are often missing in centralized social networks, which a number of people are starting to pay more attention to the need for. This while the interfaces remain basically isomorphic enough that there isn't a major UI/model-learning cost to jumping between instances. (4) Conversely to (3), for users that want efficient access, third-party clients that support multiple accounts at once are very common. But a Web browser also counts as an intermediate form of multi-account client—so long as your accounts are on different instances, which is thus encouraged for convenience!
simple10 9y ago
https://protonet.com/ https://protonet.com/ and https://holochain.org/ https://holochain.org/ are relevant and noteworthy projects. Prototnet is popular in Germany for SMB replacement of Google Apps. Holochain is an evolving blockchain / decentralized project that sold $500k USD worth of mini desktop servers on IndieGoGo last year to seed the infrastructure.